Crowds greet Exeter Apple Store opening

Apple opens new store in Exeter, gives away 1,000 T-shirts in under three hours as crowds brave freezing temperatures to visit new temple of the Mac.

By
Jonny Evans
| 26 Nov 07

Apple launched its thirteenth Apple retail store in the UK on Saturday 24 November in Exeter's Princesshay centre.

With sub-zero temperatures the night before, a queue didn't begin forming until 7am, reports Macworld UK reader, Matt Aiken. He reports that while the queue took time to form, by the time the store opened it was "longer than it looked".

"I could see the full extent of the queue, and to be honest it was pretty insane for a UK store. 30 minutes after going in, we came out and the queue was still horrendously long, with people being cheered as they went in. You certainly don’t see that kind of line waiting for any other store to open, it really brings home the successful marketing of the Apple Retail machine," Aiken wrote.

The two-storey shop has an all-glass and stainless steel front, with a suspended back-lit Apple logo. The stainless steel motif continues inside, where customers find a stone floor and the usual wooden display tables. The glass stairwell leading to the top floor is in two flights. The store's stock of 1,000 promotional Apple T-shirts was exhausted by midday, additional local reports explain.